A survey conducted by META Group has shown that buyers of CRM solutions don’t trust CRM system suppliers as a result of the problems faced by them during the initial stages of system development. However, the market is expected to grow 5-6% in 2003 and 8-9% in 2005 due to the companies that didn’t take part in the evolution of the CRM concept in 2001 and 2002.

META Group research shows that the processes of planning, implementing and performance measurement are more important to the success of a CRM system than the software product chosen. Major market players have followed buyer preferences and focused their sales efforts on CRM benefits as opposed to the needed processes.

The survey also revealed that clients are unwilling to invest in global systems and prefer simpler products with features that scaled as required.

Flasher.ru chose the sociological game PolitRate: Patriots’ Battle developed by NTR Lab as its game of the week.
The underlying purpose is to monitor public opinion and political likes/dislikes of the Internet audience using game technologies.

The avatars look like famous Russian political figures. The choice of avatar by the players combined with their reactions to their opponents’ avatars provide statistics on the political attitudes of different demographics.

74% of the audience are 18-35, which represents 49% of the 12 million Russian Internet users. Approximately 4,000 people from 60 counties and 50 regions of Russia played 6,500 games.

Additionally, PolitRate: Patriots’ Battle was favorably reviewed by the media, including BBC Russian.com, NTV, Ren TV, newspapers Vedomosti and Komsomolskaya Pravda, Ekho Moskvy radio, etc.
 

November 5-7, 2003,
NTR Lab’s CEO and COO, Nick Mikhailovsky and Anton Malkov, respectively, presented papers at the business forum IT for company management: new solutions that was held in Kiev on 5-7 November.

Mikhailovsky presented “Credit Scoring and Problems of Consumer Crediting in the Post-soviet Era,” while Malkov presented “Operational Reliability of Information Systems with Proactive Monitoring System Utilizing Cerberus.”

Mikhailovsky opened the New Technologies segment with “A Review of trends in new Internet and Intranet technologies.”

According to the organizers, the main objective of the business forum was to “provide visitors information regarding modern IT advances, as well as introduce them to a series of best practices for managing companies in the Commonwealth of Independent States.”

There were 76 seminars covering four topics

• new solutions, including complex systems of company management; MRP, MRPII, ERP, ERPII” and specialized solutions;
• new technologies;
• technical novelties; and
• company novelties.

Forty-seven companies took part in the forum, including fifteen from mass media. 554 people attended during the three-day event representing both large and medium-sized companies from the financial sector, telecommunications, power engineering, mechanical engineering, food and pharmaceuticals, retail and media.

The forum was organized by consulting firm Supremum and Euroindex, a large organizer of high-tech exhibitions and conferences, both from Ukraine.

NTR Lab CEO Nick Mikhailovsky presented How to Manage a Client-oriented Company at the tenth annual conference of The Association of HR Consultants.

The report focused on the principles of managing relationships with clients, the systems that automate this activity and the opportunities to apply them in recruiting companies.

He also spoke on the conditions of building, and criteria for measuring, the success of a client-oriented company, as well as managing using a basis of measurable metrics. Mikhailovsky also touched on the automation of the business functions of employment agencies and management planning based on the “sales funnel” concept.

The participants of the two-day conference were prominent employment agencies of Moscow and other regions in Russia.

Nick Mikhailovsky, CEO of NTR Lab, is taking part in the Software Outsourcing Summit 2003 in St. Petersburg.

The third Software Outsourcing Summit international forum focuses on Russia’s opportunities in exporting software development services and is one of the most major and recognized IT outsourcing events in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Eastern Europe.

The primary objective of the forum is to expose companies and services brokers to the opportunities for technical and business cooperation with Russian software developers in an environment conducive to meetings, negotiations and deal-making.
More than 420 participants, including journalists, from 160 companies in twenty countries, including, Russia, Ukr

aine, Belorussia, the Baltic countries, Scandinavia,  US, Japan, Germany, and others, are participating in the forum.
The forum was organized by  FORT-ROSS, the St. Petersburg consortium of IT developers, Russoft, the Russian association of software developers, Norden, the association for cooperation with Nordic countries and Digital Design and supported by the Ministry of Telecommunications and IT, and the Ministry of Industry, Science and Technologies, and the St. Petersburg local government.

The forum opened with a press-conference and key note speeches by Eila Rummukainen, VP, TeliaSonera; Melissa Laird, VP, Intel; and Tor Stenstad, VP, General Motors.

NTR Lab and SATS Technologies, Inc. have announced the implementation of ASP service monitoring of databases for clients in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

ASP service is provided on the basis of the SATS Cerberus proactive system of remote database monitoring launched in May, 2003. SATS Cerberus provides reliability and improves the performance of database servers operating on the basis of off-the-shelf databases Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2 and Informix.

ASP service database monitoring outsources not only software development but also other IT functions.
SATS Cerberus predicts and controls the hardware and OS resources to enhance database performance and prevent emergencies, incorrect functioning and data loss. SATS Cerberus is compatible with Windows NT/2000, AIX, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, Linux and others, and ensures 99.98% system efficiency.

Although the system does not administer the database it does gives the administrator a powerful and secure analytical tool for obtaining close to real-time information.

SATS Cerberus is secure because there are no direct connections between the database and portal; data is transferred one-way via http or SMTP protocol with the possibility of using a proxy-server; data is not lost in the event of a network connection failure; and there is no functionality to change data, database structure or the operating system settings.

There are over 400 companies in the USA utilizing SATS Cerberus, including Silicon Graphics International, General Electric Nuclear, SegaSoft Networks, Shockwave INC, HRL Laboratories, Virologic Inc., Federal Reserve Bank of USA, Charles Schwab Inc., and London Bridge Holding Co.

Nick Mikhailovsky, CEO of NTR Lab, chaired the seminar Managing investments: how to define the efficiency of information system creation projects during the fifth international Internet and IT: Business - Metal Conference. The co-chairmen were Marina Anshina, VP, Bridge-Holding and President of the FOSTAS Foundation and Eugeny Zinder, CEO of Group 24.

Participants were introduced to guidelines for choosing and estimating information systems projects based on the efficiency criteria. Several methods of defining project efficiency were described taking into account business conditions and IT system variations.

Participants discussed and assessed the principles and opportunities of basic existing standards and procedural materials on performance measurement and investment management in information systems, as well as features of potential new systems.

In general, the conference dealt with the search for new solutions of critical tasks involving modern information technologies, the Internet and new methods of gathering and analyzing information. The seminar covered issues for metallurgical companies, such as the development of home and foreign markets, Russia’s entry to the WTO, governmental policy in the metallurgical industry, obtaining funds, cutting inefficient and unprofitable manufacturing, increasing control and information awareness and searching for new business partners.

247 representatives from the largest companies in the metallurgical, machinery and defense industries of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, the Baltic and other foreign countries took part in the conference. Additionally, there were representatives from metal trading organizations, key academic and research and development institutions, large Russian and foreign IT companies, the government of the Russian Federation and diplomatic representatives from foreign countries.

The conference was organized by Intellectual Resources in cooperation with Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, Chermet Corporation and Marketing Souz and contributions from the Ministry of Industry and Science of the Russian Federation.

The conference was sponsored by SAP AG, i2, Hewlett-Packard, Intel Technologies and Sun Microsystems.

Nick Mikhailovsky, CEO of NTR Lab, presented a paper at the How Much Does CRM Cost? seminar held March 31, 2003 in Moscow. Mikhailovsky addressed costs and risks in the implementation of CRM systems; a general method of estimating total cost ownership of an automated system; and typical risks of CRM system implementation projects, i.e., the total cost of the system is composed of direct costs, indirect costs and values at risk.

Direct costs:

Capital spending:

• Hardware and software (licenses, upgrading and updating)
• Development and implementation (application design, testing, documentation, user training, adapting to client’s requirements and maintenance);

Operating costs:

• administration (paying for network and system administration, storage device administration, HR and outsourcing management, plus, real-time and anticipatory management);
• support (technical support services, training, maintenance supply, business trips, maintenance and support agreements, basic overhead, such as rent);
• communication (dedicated line and server access).

Indirect costs:

• problem-solving and trouble-shooting by employees;
• training and additional study time; and
• trial-and-error diagnostics.

Values at risk are defined by the cost of business risks, the probability of technical risks and the matrix of correlation between them. The matrix of this correlation depends on the architecture of the information system.

Business risk-related losses are failures to perform certain system functions; they appear eventually as a result of technical risks.  A business risk can be mitigated with the corresponding organizational process and/or an architectural solution.

Therefore, it is necessary to

• specify business risks and estimate their costs;
• define technical risks of the chosen solution and estimate the probability of these risks and their effect on business risks to build the correlation matrix;
• choose the best variant by doing several iterations and changing the architecture and technical characteristics of the system.

Typical business risks associated with CRM systems:

• adding/editing client data is disabled;
• client data is unavailable;
• data is lost;
• unapproved, abusive or illegal use of data;
• inconsistent data;
• incorrect definition of a client or client category;
• client is unable to initiate contact;
• client receives incorrect information;
• client is unable to activate self-service function.

Other risks worth mentioning are those appearing at the system design or system delivery stage:

• the conceptual relationships with clients is at odds with the general company strategy;
• the company has neither focus nor interest in client relationship management;
• there are no success metrics for implementing a CRM system;
• real world client relationships are not synergistic with the designed automated system;
• staff sabotage;
• incorrect conclusions drawn from the analysis of CRM data;
• software or technical solution obsolescence during the implementation process.

NTR Lab was one of 30 companies that took part in The Russian Offshore Software Development Industry Survey conducted by Outsourcing-Russia.com

According to the survey

• 10,000 software developers in Russia at 150 companies account for about $150-200M;
• the Russian market for outsourced software development is growing 50% a year.
• more than 12 major, international companies have established software development centers in Russia, including Motorola, Intel, Sun, Boeing, LG, Lucent and Nortel.
• Russia is number three in the world for scientists and engineers per capita.

Other benefits include competitive labor costs, proximity to Western Europe, good infrastructure and convenient communication times with the US and a compatibility with Western culture that facilitates understanding (Source: A Whitepaper on Offshore Software Development in Russia by the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia).

American and Canadian companies make up 70% of Russian outsource IT clients, with the remaining 30% in Western Europe, Scandinavia and South-East Asia.

Research shows that the proportions are unlikely to change in the near future.

Political stability, economic growth and the governmental concern for the IT industry are additional positive factors contributing to the choice of Russia as an outsourcing partner.

The survey was conducted by international law firm BEITEN BURKHARDT GOERDELER Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH in conjunction with Brooke Nicole Consultancy, Inc. and INFORUS.

A survey conducted by META Group has shown that buyers of CRM solutions don’t trust CRM system suppliers as a result of the problems faced by them during the initial stages of system development. However, the market is expected to grow 5-6% in 2003 and 8-9% in 2005 due to the companies that didn’t take part in the evolution of the CRM concept in 2001 and 2002.

META Group research shows that the processes of planning, implementing and performance measurement are more important to the success of a CRM system than the software product chosen. Major market players have followed buyer preferences and focused their sales efforts on CRM benefits as opposed to the needed processes.

The survey also revealed that clients are unwilling to invest in global systems and prefer simpler products with features that scaled as required.